Vegans making an impact

Omnivores are mindlessly co-operating with vested interests in the animal trade. It could be the greatest catastrophe of our age. It’s the very opposite of boycotting, which is the only thing a vegan can do, to rebel against this one terrible convention - the industrial scale abuse of domesticated animals. A vegan is poles apart from a conventionalist in this way. Our ‘violence-filter’ sieves out about half of all marketed items each of which contain some animal product. In that way we’re ‘clean’ in the same way an alcoholic gives up booze or a recovered heroin addict is clean. The total absence of abattoir products in our lives makes our lifestyle seem painfully restricted, even self-denying. But of course, it’s not. Yes, one might have difficulty in dropping some old fixations, as I do with missing Mars Bars but (get a grip!) it’s all a matter of perspective.
Amongst vegans there’s a familiar topic of conversation: a discussion along the lines of “How can they do it?”, cave into their weaknesses each day, and not be able to say “No” to things? We never get very far with this except that it reminds me of fundamental values parents might have taught us when we were very little. I suspect vegans remember this advice. It’s very strong in them anyway and is therefore probably the epicentre of our vegan tendency - a regard for being kind. All to do with teddy bears being our own children and treating them with more respect ... and in this way the whole message of being kind imprints. I suspect those who move towards being vegan are that way imprinted. And this is our luckiest trait.
However there’s probably a serious downside to being vegan, in that not too many people feel that way lucky. In consequence vegans are still a minority and as with all minorities the most common feeling we have is one of being alienated, in a vegan’s case from their whole society. We hold such different views on this one important matter. Is it important? Is the matter of not using animals important? That’s to be dealt with later ... here we’re looking at why vegans don’t communicate their message very well. And I think that might be because we feel so marginalised. We are Society’s “left-outs”: we respond to that by nurturing feelings of separation (between us and them), and friends are drawn from the like minded. We’ll talk our heads off but still only be preaching to the converted. Instead of promoting discussion of first principles.
The other big downside of being vegan is a disappointment in people we most admired - the ladies and gentlemen of the Press. We learn to our cost that animals are not served by the interests of the reporter. We need to steer clear of mass media since the majority of reporters can’t be trusted. They are, after all, story-makers, writing readable stories, ‘media-feeders’ who make fiction be truth and facts be superfluous.
Face to face, in everyday conversation, is probably where we impact most, where someone’s mind is free to consider new ideas and feel free to follow their private thoughts, come to their own conclusions and do it in their own time. They know they’ve got to be thinking about the factors pressing down here: taste bud revolt, stomach protest, upsetting the family, economic considerations, health factors, the pin-prick effect of personal change, etc. It’s a big step changing. You’d have to consider changing shopping lists and habits, reading ingredient lists and boycotting, and then after that finding replacements-for. It’s a big step, so I suppose the most useful help vegans can offer is to suggest ways it can be done. Like doing a weight-loss programme, or any rehab process. We introduce little-by-little-swop-overs. That’s basically what it comes down to, in the move from animal-based to plant-based products.
We come back to freedom of choice, freedom to move at one’s own pace. Children are always being hurried, but as adults we must be and can be less so. That lack of hurry helps in the change over. And then it’s down to the individual to do what they will, and if they do change they’ll feel the benefits straight away on all sorts of levels. Mainly, if unhurried, they’ll notice how their new buying begins to reflect ‘the better side of themselves’. They can have a front row seat, to watch their whole life turn around. Just because of that one decision-to-try.
I suppose I’m just sounding like a typically evangelistic vegan here! But just one more sentence ... it all starts by listening and learning (preferably from a vegan) how to safely make some daring, radical changes to one’s lifestyle.